In the just-concluded 17th round of the Chinese Super League, Wu Lei scored a hat trick against the Zhejiang team at home, helping Shanghai Port win 10 consecutive victories. So far this season, he has scored 19 goals and 3 assists in the Chinese Super League, with an average of 1.29 goals per game. Wu Lei, who will turn 33 in November, even surpassed the statistics of the same period when he won the championship with Shanghai SIPG six years ago (14 goals and 4 assists in 17 games).
The good state of "Harbor Wu Lei" makes people look forward to the "National Football Wu Lei" in the next World Preliminaries. People are looking forward to "Harbor Wu Lei" bringing his peak state to the national team and bringing more help to the national football team.
So, can "Harbor Wu Lei" be replicated in the national football team to the greatest extent? Comparing the staffing and technical and tactical play of the harbor and the national football team, it should be said that it is quite difficult.
Discussing the difficulty of replicating "Harbour Wu Lei" in the national team, Harbour head coach Muscat's statement is the most convincing.
When commenting on Wu Lei at the post-match press conference after the 17th round of the Chinese Super League victory over Zhejiang, Muscat said: "It's still very difficult not to mention Wu Lei today, he scored a very beautiful goal, and I will continue to put him in the position where I can help the team." I believe that if Wu Lei sits in this position, he will also give a lot of praise to his teammates, such as Gustavo who works very hard as a center forward. Including all your teammates on and off the field, everyone is contributing. Although Wu Lei scored so many goals and made headlines, it was actually the team's performance that created today's situation. Judging from this evaluation, in addition to the player's own efforts, Muscat attributed Wu Lei's outburst to two points: the first is to put him in a "position that can help the team", and the second is "the team's performance".
Mu Shuai's statement can be said to be very objective, first of all, Wu Lei's position, because of the existence of the big center Gustavo, Wu Lei appeared more on the side this season. This is what he likes and is good at, and this area is even more unique to plug in.
As for the "team performance", it is more obvious: in the top 10 of the Chinese Super League assist list, Shanghai Port has as many as 4 people, and among the five foreign aids, Oscar has 11 assists, Vargas has 5 assists, Chitadini and Yousa have 4 each, and Gustavo has 3 assists. Sixteen of Wu Lei's 19 goals came from five outside players: Oscar (five), Vargas (four), Citardini (three), Yousa (three) and Gustavo (one). This kind of firepower support is unique in the Chinese Super League, which cannot be achieved by the national team.
For Ivan, it is not difficult to put Wu Lei in the right position in the national team, but the difficult thing is "team building", that is, to do everything possible to solve the problem of the last pass. If there are no new naturalized players joining the team, it is very difficult for Wu Lei to get more and more effective firepower support.
There is a second dimension to the phrase "team building", which is Muscat's harbor, which is more than a rhythm faster than other teams in the Chinese Super League. The high-speed continuous impact of "five foreign aid + Wu Lei" in the front court makes it difficult for the defense line of most Chinese Super League teams to resist, which is also difficult to replicate in the national team. Moreover, the national football team is in the fifth pot, and when playing against Japan, Australia, and Saudi Arabia, whether it has the ability to play against it is a question.
In the round of 18, if the national football team wants to compete for the fourth place and enter the play-offs, in addition to scoring as many points as possible on Bahrain and Indonesia, it must also strive to score points against the top three teams. As a leading scorer in the number of goals in the Chinese Super League, breaking through the door of the top 3 teams in the top 18 should also be the goal of Wu Lei's breakthrough in the top 18.
Limited by the overall strength of the national team, since his first match against the top three teams in the round of 18 (Uzbekistan) in 2013, Wu Lei has played against 9 teams in the top three of the top 18 30 times in 12 years, with a total of 4 goals and 1 assist. Among them, there were 0 goals and 0 assists in 9 matches against Japan, South Korea and Iran in Pot 1, 4 goals in 11 matches against Australia, Qatar and Iraq in Pot 2, and 0 goals and 1 assist in 10 matches against Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Jordan in Pot 3. It should be pointed out that because Japan and South Korea have not sent the strongest team to play in the East Asian Cup, they will not be counted in the statistics of the match record.
One of the four goals came in the final group stage of the 2018 World Cup Top 40 against Qatar, which had already qualified early and had a large rotation of the squad. The other three goals were against Qatar in September 2017, a warm-up match against Iraq at the end of 2018, Australia in the sixth round of the 2022 World Cup Round of 12 and one assist against Uzbekistan in October 2023.
Among them, in the official match (qualifiers + Asian Cup), against the top three teams, Wu Lei scored 3 goals in 24 appearances. In Wu Lei's 14-year international career, other players of the national football team scored goals against the top three teams in the top 18 during the same period, Hao Junmin (5 goals) had the most, Gao Lin, Yu Hai, Yu Dabao and Wu Xi (3 goals) tied for second place with Wu Lei, in addition to 7 people who scored 1 goal.
The overall strength of the national team continues to decline, which must be the reason why Wu Lei scored limited goals against Asian powerhouses. This round of 18 can be said to be his last chance to break through himself. Considering his own good form this season, in this round of 18, he should undoubtedly be the most relied on attack point of the national football team, the national team does not have five foreign aids, but still needs to do its best to provide Wu Lei with more effective firepower support and more perfect offensive supporting means through tactical design. At the same time, it also requires Wu Lei to make further breakthroughs in his ability to grasp opportunities, and be more resolute and confident against strong teams.
It is foreseeable that the absolute scoring opportunities that the national football team can create in the top 18 are very limited, and how to better grasp the opportunity to create a miracle is a topic for the national team, and it is Wu Lei's final breakthrough.